Tag: Paperback

Finally, Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy is available via Amazon.com. This means great things for me as more people shop there than on Lulu (despite the fact that Lulu is cheaper shhhh!). This makes me a very happy camper after all the struggle of figuring out publishing for the first time. Starting to see some revenue coming in and that feels wonderful after all I’ve invested in custom art, professional editor, graphic designer, etc.

Also, please do remember that the Five for February sale is indeed still on. Have a fabulous Friday, folks.

One-Piece Cover Not Lining Up

I asked this question in another thread on the Lulu froums, but the response was essentially: “Hey this thread is really old,” and “Just muck around with it. You’ll figure it out.”

Well I’ve been mucking around with my cover for almost a month now. I hired a graphic designer to do a beautiful wrap-around cover complete with spine art and custom lettering. It was done to the exact specifications for an A5 Paperback. I ordered my proof copy and got this:

As you can see, the spine is creeping onto the front cover and the back cover is creeping onto the spine. There’s clearly some misalignment here somwhere.

I’ve read everything I can on the subject. Nothing on the forums or on the site proper has helped. My designer has tinkered with it ad nauseum. I’ve tinkered with it ad nauseum and neither of us can figure out what the heck the problem is. We’ve tried trimming the left-most edge of the back cover by a milimitre or two. We’ve tried adjusting the width of the spine, the size of the art on the spine. We’ve even tried moving the spine and front cover a bit to the right or left but no matter what we do, it just won’t line up.

I keep getting this:

Yes, that’s a small image. That’s all I have to work with because I can’t figure out any way to make it bigger and see what the heck I’m doing. I think what I’m seeing here is that the spine is now creeping onto both the back and front cover. This is only one of the many, many, many misaligned iterations. The best we’ve been able to do is a one milimeter creep to the right.

I’m at my wit’s end, my friends. Please help me. I’m out of ideas to try and I’m so frustrated I could scream. I really want to put out a high-quality product.

Hi guys! Just a quick post to let you know that I’m almost finished with the skeletal outline of the second book of the Blood of Midnight series. Absolutely loving the template I’m working with. It makes everything so much more manageable. I’m still not 100% sure about the title so I’m not going to announce that yet. Soon!

I’m slowly picking my way through the ins and outs of making my book available on DriveThruFiction. There’s a lot of information there. A lot to work through. Hopefully, it will pay off in the end. Apparently they want me to use Scribus to format my book so I downloaded that. It seems they also want me to use Lightning Source Cover Generator for the cover. I think that’s a service I have to sign up for. I’m really not sure yet. One thing at a time. It is rather frustrating having to go through all of this after already having the book nicely formatted and the cover professionally done and then have to start from the beginning because DriveThru uses a different system. Maybe in the future this will all be standardized? Hopefully.

Speaking of covers, I did some tinkering with the cover for Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy but Lulu’s cover generator didn’t seem to like it. I tried to revert back to the previous version but since there’s no function to do that, I had to re-upload the un-tinkered version. This means that I have to purchase yet another copy of my own book in order to verify that it’s ready for distribution despite the fact that it’s absolutely no different than it was before.

So yes, do be careful when publishing through Lulu. A few button clicks can cost you twenty dollars and two more weeks of waiting for another proof to arrive before you can restart distribution.

I did not realize, when I became an author that I would actually be spending most of my time fighting with computers and watching tutorials. … I think I need some more coffee.

Here it is my friends! The paperback copy you’ve all been waiting for. And poking me for. And asking when it’s going to be available. Well today is the day! Happy Boxing Day everybody and have a fun-filled new year!

Alright! Paperback proof has been ordered from Lulu. It will take 4-7 business days to reach me. Once I have verified that there are no weird printing errors, I will make the book available for public purchase.

The price will be around 20 dollars Canadian. Lulu will not let me price it any lower, unfortunately. It’s more than I wanted it to be but, as this is my first book, and without the financial clout of a big publishing house behind me, print-on-demand is the only way I’m able to bring you a paperback copy.

If it’s absolutely beyond your budget but you still want to enjoy the book, I encourage you to pick up an electronic version from Smashwords or Amazon and download a free e-reader app for you computer. My editor recommends Calibre as his favourite option to read it with. Yes, it’s free. If you want to try this option and you’re having trouble, please let me know. I think people should be able to enjoy my work regardless of their income.

I remember walking through my favourite bookstore as a kid and having no money to buy any of the books I wanted. It’s a sad feeling, and I promised myself that when I was an author, I wouldn’t do that to anyone else. I’m doing my best for you guys, I promise.